Lunch in Kreuzberg: ORA

It’s time to update a post that has been ever popular, but isn’t representative of what the restaurant is currently doing: Ora, the former pharmacy turned stunning café, has been growing so much over the past two years. They evolved the menu, ditched the mason jars and wooden boards in favour of fine china, added more tarts and cakes, and upped their cocktail menu. So it was time to go back on a grey autumnal day to give you an impression of the current menu.

Ora is not a favourite of mine because the interior seems to be instagram-ready at all times, but because the space actually works so well as the Berlin version of a Kaffeehaus or bistro, and time passes easily here.
For our autumnal lunch, we chose the oven baked cauliflower with kale and peppers, a tart filled with three kinds of pumpkin, served with pumpkinseed oil and browned butter, as well as a roasted bass for my friend.

What I like about their menu is not only their use of seasonal and local ingredients, but their way of creating simple and focussed dishes – there’s no fuss or extras, yet always enough elements to underline the qualities of the ingredient in focus. Like the oven roasted cauliflower, whose subtlety and earthiness is accentuated by the herbaceous kale and the sweet peppers. However, while we’ve heard loads of people rave about the pumpkin tart, our serving failed in terms of intensity, which might just have been a glitch in the kitchen routine of the day. But since one of Ora’s specialities is baking (their own excellent bread, their plethora of sweets), the actual pastry of the tart is super yummy (because it’s very buttery).

It’s hardly a worthwhile visit at Ora if you don’t have a piece of their sweet treats to finish your meal. The star among them is the caramel filled chocolate tart with sea salt flakes on top, but I personally like to go for the seasonally filled crumble cakes, like the one pictured here with pear.

Comments

I mostly love your recommendations but I couldn’t disagree more for ORA. The food was completely mediocre and the service horribly rude.

Nice place indeed for a fast cofffee (they will kick you out if you take it slow).

Mary Scherpe on Wednesday, November 8, 2017 – 11:42 pm

I’ve heard many different reports on the service at Ora – for me, it has gotten a lot better in the last year, but it probably depends how crowded it is (the staff tends to get a lot more confused when it’s packed), and who’s working that day. That being said, I didn’t have a bad experience in the last 6 months. Same with the food, it has gotten a lot better and more consistent in quality.

The last time we visited we had a super-friendly waitress who was then substituted by a super rude one. I think they wanted us to go so more people can find a table – which I totally respect, especially if you keep a table long enough without any further ordering – but instead of telling us in a friendly manner she was so rude and passive aggressive we were speechless. At some point (after having ordered a round of desserts and second cups of coffee) she brought the bill without having asked for it and looked at us angrily until we paid.

Before leaving I tried telling her that we felt really unpleasant only to have a colleague of hers stepping between us and telling me indirectly “take your feedback and get the * out of here”.